The fourth annual ‘e-government’ survey, conducted at Brown University, finds that most state and federal government Web sites are written at too high a grade level for average American users. About one-third of sites examined satisfied recognized standards for accessibility by users with vision or hearing impairment. Rankings for state and federal Web sites appear below.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Most state and federal
government Web sites are not fully accessible to American citizens because they
are written at too high a grade level, according to the fourth annual
e-government analysis conducted by researchers at Brown University.

Darrell M. West, director of the Taubman Center for Public
Policy at Brown University, and a team of researchers led by Joanne Chiu and
Erica Dreisbach examined 1,603 state sites (an average of 32 sites per state)
and 60 federal sites. Financial support for the project was provided by Brown
University. Research was completed during June and July 2003. Previous
e-government studies were released in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Researchers evaluated readability levels by employing the
Flesch-Kincaid test, a standard reading evaluator tool used by the U.S.
Department of Defense. The test computes reading level by dividing the average
sentence length (number of words divided by number of sentences) by the average
number of syllables per word (number of syllables divided by the number of
words).

The average readability of American state and federal Web sites
is at the eleventh-grade level, well above the comprehension level of many
Americans. According to national literacy statistics, half of Americans read at
the eighth-grade level or lower. This year’s analysis of government Web
sites found 67 percent at the twelfth-grade level and only 12 percent at the
eighth-grade level or lower.

There are some differences between state and federal sites.
Sixty-eight percent of state sites read at the twelfth-grade level, while 63
percent of the federal sites do so. Agency type also matters, although not
always in a manner consistent with the particular audience served by the Web
site. Researchers tested a theory that agencies serving a more highly educated
clientele would gear their Web sites to a higher level than those serving people
with less formal education.

Agencies presumably geared toward the less educated, however,
did not have lower grade-level readability. For example, corrections departments
report the highest percentage (83 percent) of Web sites written at the
twelfth-grade level. Other agencies that have a high percentage of sites written
at the twelfth-grade level include budget (81 percent), economic development (79
percent), elementary education (74 percent), housing (69 percent), health (69
percent), human services (67 percent) and taxation (46 percent).

The study also examined disability accessibility for users with
vision or hearing impairment. Using the online “Bobby” service [at
http://bobby.watchfire.com], researchers at Brown evaluated the actual
accessibility of Web sites using two different measures: compliance with the
Priority Level One standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
and compliance with the legal requirements of Section 508 of the U.S.
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Sites were judged to be either in compliance or not
in compliance based on the results of these two tests.

In this year's study, 33 percent of state and federal sites
satisfied the W3C standard of accessibility, and 24 percent met the guidelines
for Section 508. Federal sites (47 percent) are more likely than state sites (33
percent) to meet the W3C standard of accessibility. Researchers found little
difference between state sites (24 percent) and federal sites (22 percent) in
meeting Section 508 accessibility standards.

Foreign language access is an area of improvement in state and
federal e-government. The percent of Web sites with foreign language translation
or publications in a foreign language is 13 percent, up from 7 percent last
year. However, there is a wide discrepancy this year between state and federal
Web sites, with 12 percent of state Web sites and 40 percent of federal Web
sites offering foreign language translation.

The study ranks the 50 states and various federal agencies on
overall e-government performance. Using measures such as online services,
attention to privacy and security, disability access, foreign language
translation, Web site personalization and e-mail responsiveness, the research
team rated the various state sites and compared their performance to last year.

The top ranking state is Massachusetts with 46.3 points out of a
possible 100, followed closely by Texas (43), Indiana (42.4), Tennessee (41.1),
and California (41.1). The states achieving the lowest rankings are Nebraska
(31.3), New Mexico (30.9), and Alaska (30.3). The following table shows where
each state ranked in 2003, with the previous year's ranking or score in
parentheses.

Overall State e-Government Ratings in 2003
(previous year’s data in parentheses; rating is on a 100-point scale)

Rank

State

Rating

Rank

State

Rating

1

(24)

Massachusetts

46.3

(45.6)

24

(21)

Ohio

37.4

(46.4)

2

(6)

Texas

43.0

(52.8)

27

(37)

Minnesota

36.8

(43.3)

3

(12)

Indiana

42.4

(51.5)

28

(43)

Louisiana

36.6

(42.3)

4

(1)

Tennessee

41.4

(56.0)

29

(20)

N. Dakota

36.4

(46.9)

5

(3)

California

41.1

(54.8)

30

(39)

Idaho

35.9

(42.8)

6

(19)

Michigan

40.6

(48.2)

31

(38)

Georgia

35.8

(43.1)

7

(5)

Pennsylvania

40.5

(52.9)

32

(8)

Nevada

35.7

(51.9)

7

(11)

New York

40.5

(51.6)

33

(35)

Rhode Island

35.3

(43.5)

9

(13)

Florida

40.3

(51.5)

34

(18)

Oregon

34.9

(48.5)

10

(44)

Kentucky

40.0

(42.0)

35

(28)

Iowa

34.6

(44.9)

11

(16)

Illinois

39.7

(49.3)

36

(46)

Wisconsin

34.2

(40.4)

11

(22)

Missouri

39.7

(46.3)

37

(30)

Arkansas

34.0

(44.5)

13

(2)

New Jersey

39.6

(55.0)

38

(29)

Oklahoma

33.2

(44.9)

14

(9)

S. Dakota

39.5

(51.9)

39

(47)

Colorado

33.1

(40.0)

15

(32)

Arizona

39.1

(44.2)

40

(50)

Wyoming

33.0

(34.8)

16

(7)

Washington

38.6

(52.4)

41

(36)

West Virginia

32.7

(43.5)

17

(10)

Utah

38.1

(51.7)

41

(26)

S. Carolina

32.7

(45.4)

17

(27)

Maryland

38.1

(44.9)

41

(25)

Montana

32.7

(45.5)

17

(15)

Virginia

38.1

(49.6)

44

(42)

Vermont

32.3

(42.4)

20

(17)

N. Carolina

38.0

(48.6)

45

(45)

Hawaii

32.1

(41.9)

20

(23)

Kansas

38.0

(45.6)

46

(49)

Alabama

31.9

(35.8)

22

(4)

Connecticut

37.9

(53.3)

47

(48)

Mississippi

31.5

(37.4)

23

(14)

N. Hampshire

37.6

(51.1)

48

(40)

Nebraska

31.3

(42.6)

24

(41)

Delaware

37.4

(42.4)

49

(31)

New Mexico

30.9

(44.2)

24

(34)

Maine

37.4

(43.7)

50

(33)

Alaska

30.3

(44.1)

Among federal sites, the FirstGov portal ranks first with 84 out
of a possible 100 points, followed by the Federal Communications Commission
(73), Social Security Administration (68), Internal Revenue Service (68), and
the Library of Congress (68). The federal sites that had the lowest ratings are
the various Circuit Courts of Appeal. The following table lists the ranking of
federal agencies in 2003, with last year's rank or score in parentheses.

In the conclusion of their report, West and his research team
suggest several means to improve e-government Web sites. Their recommendations
include:

Sites should strive for clear and simple language that is easily understood
by the American public.

More attention needs to be devoted to disability access so that sight- and
hearing- impaired citizens can have access to online information and
services.

Claims of W3C and Bobby disability compliance on the Web site should be
verified on a regular basis.

Web sites should include clear, well-marked privacy policies and not simply
disclaimers or liability statements. A detailed privacy policy ensures both
legal protection for users and comprehension by users.

The privacy policy should be on the portal page of the Web site and easy to
find.

Services should be conveniently clustered together on the portal page rather
than scattered throughout the Web site.

Web sites should always include a link back to the portal page to make for
easy navigation.

Each Web site should be organized and uncluttered to help users access the
services and information they want.

Translation into other languages should be easy to find and use.

Within-site searches should yield meaningful results and the search engine
should be up to date (i.e., no broken links or outdated Web sites).

For more information about the results of this study,
please contact Darrell West at (401) 863-1163 or see the full report at
www.insidepolitics.org. The appendix of that report provides e-government
profiles for each of the 50 states and the federal agencies.